I mean, Waltrip did finish seventh, it says so right there on the results page, but, we all know Mikey can draft. Hell, if not for plate racing, Mikey’s washing dishes down to the Waffle House, right? Anyway, Daytona is some kind of random.

Kevin Harvick finishes second. Clint Bowyer finishes fourth. Between them, the two Richard Childress Racing drivers might have turned three good laps in practice all week. Hell, Harvick turned the eighth-best lap in the final practice, but that’s the best either he or Bowyer did. Most of the rest of the time, he and Bowyer (and, for that matter, Jeff Burton and Casey Mears, the other RCR drivers) spent quality practice time with the Kirk Shelmerdines of the world.

No, practice doesn’t mean much — you never know what teams are working on or if a driver ran his laps solo, in the draft or what. Still, Harvick started 32nd, Bowyer 22nd. And, according to NASCAR’s lap summary report, both drivers spent a good portion of Sunday’s race fairly deep in the pack. Again, that could just be indicative of a play-it-safe strategy and not proof that their cars sucked.

But, there it is: the RCR cars weren’t very good in practice, they weren’t so hot in qualifying and neither guy brought a great deal of attention to himself on race day. And yet, at the end of it all, there they were, second and fourth.